English Straight and Tok Pisin Stret: A Case Study from the Perspective of Cognitive Linguistics

The framework of cognitive linguistics can be an efficient tool to represent the conceptual scope of meaning extension in reduced lexicons of pidgins and creoles. Image-schema based metaphors (Lakoff, 1993; Cienki, 1998) underlie the usage of English straight and its Tok Pisin counterpart stret, but the creole employs the concept in more contexts than English. The resultant variation in the scope of metaphor takes the form of a particular source domain being used to conceptualize more target domains than in the lexifier language. Functioning mainly as a compensation strategy, the variation is the effect of strong influence of English on the conceptual system of the creole.